Cystic Fibrosis Victim's Frailty

JASON COLE - Staff Writer

Couldn't Diminish His Character

May 20, 1997|JASON COLE and Staff Writer

MIAMI - — Scott Chait made me cry once, long before he died.

It was three years ago, after I'd finished interviewing him in his hospital room. I was driving home, and the power of his personality overwhelmed me so that I had to pull to the side of Kendall Drive in Miami to dry my eyes.

Chait, a Dolphins media-relations employee who died Sunday at 23 after complications from a double lung transplant in January, wasn't physically imposing. His body, thinned from birth by cystic fibrosis, weighed barely 100 pounds. But his bony exterior was merely a vessel for a soul stronger than that of the mightiest of players he worked with.

It was strong enough to draw nearly 1,000 to a service Monday at his synagogue. Much of the team, numerous fellow employees and even coach Jimmy Johnson were there with Chait's family and friends. Johnson, who dislikes funerals by nature and didn't attend the service for Jerome Brown years ago, was compelled to attend for what he called "private reasons."

Team President Eddie Jones could barely get through his eulogy, putting Chait in the same sentence with Johnson and owner H. Wayne Huizenga. Jones' sentences were interrupted by tears.

As for me, it's almost embarrassing to write about being touched by him. These words can't begin to describe the beauty of his life. I only hope my own son can live as fully.

One hand could count the times I'd cried in more than a decade before I talked to Chait that day. I didn't even break down the day my father committed suicide.

Chait could make memories with a smile or a cough. When I asked him about dying - most with CF don't make it to 30 - he shrugged. I was melancholy. He smiled dismissively.

He said he didn't want a lung transplant back then. I guess it was denial, the way a player refuses to believe he'll lose a step. Chait was convincing himself that he could beat CF, in which lungs progressively deteriorate as mucus collects.

That attitude probably shortened his life. He ignored what was best for him - rest - to do everything possible. He worked for the Dolphins as an assistant in the media relations department and went to college. He tried to be normal with a body of a champagne glass.

There was the day he played touch football with some reporters and Dolphin employees after work. By the end, he was coughing so much and so violently I thought he needed a transplant right on the field.

Did it cost him a day or two of his life to play for a few minutes? Maybe. Then again, he would have denied himself the opportunity to live if he hadn't played.

"I can't sit around like some of the other people who have this," Chait had said. "My doctors tell me not to push so much, but I can't do that."

More than once, Director of Public Relations Fudge Browne had to tell Chait to stay home. Chait told her in February that he'd come back to work in a few weeks. She rolled her eyes and told him he'd be fired if he did. He was still back in time for the draft in late April.

"My favorite memory of Scott is that I didn't know he was sick until a year after I met him," said former Dolphins wide receiver Irving Fryar, one of eight pallbearers along with O.J. McDuffie and Randal Hill.

On May 9, Chait told Browne he was running a fever. The next day he was in the hospital. The doctors thought he'd make it. He took a turn for the worse a week ago.

It's correct to reason that Chait's death was inevitable. This set of lungs would have given out one day. The battle with CF is hopeless, for now.

The greater battle, however, is fear. To Dream the Impossible Dream was recited at Chait service. Chait had dreamed that.

In fact, he did Don Quixote one better. Chait's life was real. It was truly noble.